Four female shearers are in the last stages of a massive World shearing record day’s work expected to finish with a combined total of over 1900 lambs in eight hours in a South Otago woolshed.

Starting the four-stand Women’s 8 hour strong wool lamb record attempt at 7.30am on a cold morning at “Melrose Station’, near Owaka, and set to end at 5.30pm, the four had shorn 1446 by the three-quarter stage afternoon-tea break at 3pm.

Te Atakura Crawford had shorn 395, at 54-55 seconds a lamb, caught, shorn and sent through the porthole. Ariana (Missy) Te Whata had shorn 375, Pagan Rimene 363, and Rose Lewis 313.

At one stage calculating a total just over 1900, commentators were predicting an end-result about 1930, with Crawford set to shear over 520, and Te Whata also on target to go close to 500..

There is no established record for this category in a register of more than 40 recognised by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society, the four had collectively shorn more in each two-hour run than were shorn un the only two-hour run of a four-stand women's nine-hour record of 2066 shorn at Waihi Pukawa Station, near the shores of Lake Taupo in the Central North Island, in January 2020.

The shearing is monitored by society referees in convenor Mark Buscumb, from Australia, and New Zealand officials Neil Fagan, Bart Hadfield, Ronnie King, Alistair Emslie, Johnny Fraser, and Donald Johnston.

A wool-weigh on Monday enabled the attempt to go ahead, with 20 lambs sampled from the flock producing 24.56kg of wool, comfortably over the minimum requirement of an average of 0.9kg per lamb.

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